*** The unofficial home brewing thread ***

[A mex eyecan]

i'd just been thinking the other day about brewing my own. I've never done it before so probably go tits up first time. Is there any merit in brewing a smaller batch to start off with and then if and when you master the art you brew the full 23 litres?

 

[pishhead]

i'd just been thinking the other day about brewing my own. I've never done it before so probably go tits up first time. Is there any merit in brewing a smaller batch to start off with and then if and when you master the art you brew the full 23 litres?

It depends upon which method you decide upon. Be that all grain, brew in a bag or a 1 or 2 tin DME kit. You will make mistakes along the way but brew after brew your beers will certainly improve. Give it a try.

 

[A mex eyecan]

It depends upon which method you decide upon. Be that all grain, brew in a bag or a 1 or 2 tin DME kit. You will make mistakes along the way but brew after brew your beers will certainly improve. Give it a try.

having just read about the diy fridge/heater I'm going to put one together, I have a shed just crying out for one! may as well give myself every chance of getting a good brew rather than scrimping to start with and making a lash up of it.

anyone know of any kits that produce a beer close to Harvey's best? thought i'd start with a beer that is similar to one i already like

 

[bWize]

I would do away with the pressure barrel personally unless you plan on drinking circa 23 litres of beer in a short space of time. Bottle carbonation is a relatively simple process.

Thanks for the reply. What sort of time limit is a 'short space of time' in this regard? If less than a month, I'm sure me and a few pals would finish 23 litres fairly easy over a few weekends

 

[beorhthelm]

First off forget Harveys to begin its complex and will need to be a grain recipe with specific grains and hops.

The kits make 23 litres so there's little point trying to half one, just don't drink it all ( yeah right). Biggest lesson for taste is do not use household sugar for the main brew, use Brewers sugar, or spelt in place, it will give it the right balance of sweetness, worth it for couple quid.

Biggest lesson for a successful brew is first make a good yeast starter, 1/2 pint warm water and spoon of sugar to hydrate the yeast before you put it in. And second ensure where you will brew will stay steady temp of ~16-20 deg. Garages this time year should be perfect. Shed might be too cold if exposed and the brew will get "stuck" and not finish. Once brewed though, the beer will keep better at lower temps.

 

[pishhead]

Thanks for the reply. What sort of time limit is a 'short space of time' in this regard? If less than a month, I'm sure me and a few pals would finish 23 litres fairly easy over a few weekends

Absolutely couple of weeks will be fine. Each to their own and all that but I prefer to have bottles as firstly I like my beers cold, also taking a couple of bottles around a mates is much easier than lugging a pressure barrel and potentially dislodging all the sediment.
Whatever you decide, happy brewing.

 

[Mr Bronson]

I have my first stout just about to go into bottles tomorrow. The recipe is a clone of Brewdogs Jet Black Heart. 30 days in the bottle without breaking one open is going to be struggle.

 

[sjamesb3466]

I have my first stout just about to go into bottles tomorrow. The recipe is a clone of Brewdogs Jet Black Heart. 30 days in the bottle without breaking one open is going to be struggle.

Congrats on popping your brewing cherry!

I would say even 30 days is pushing it. I try to leave mine 10-12 weeks for optimum flavour.

Good things come to those etc....

If you have the space to store bottles I would recommend visiting your best local real ale pub and ask them to keep behind as many pint bottles as they are willing to set aside for you. Unless they are selling German or Belgian beers in bottles (where you tend to have to send the bottles back) most pubs have to pay by weight to have their glass bottles collected for recycling so you are doing them a favour by taking some off their hands and is a good way to collect a large number of quality bottles without spending a penny.

 

[whitelion]

I tried home brew as a teenager in the early seventies using kits from Boots. It was awful.

Hope things have moved on.

 

[sjamesb3466]

I tried home brew as a teenager in the early seventies using kits from Boots. It was awful.

Hope things have moved on.

Significantly.

 

[mr sheen]

I think I'm going to have a go at this, am off to wilko's

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

 

[sjamesb3466]

Equipment in for overnight sterilisation, brew day tomorrow with pictures to follow

 

[sjamesb3466]

Recipe created, equipment sterilised, mash water on, mash tun ready....

(Apologies for picture quality, phone had a dusty lens!

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Glad to see this thread.

I'm a BIAB brewer (mainly due to lack of space). Latest brews have been a German wheat flavoured with coriander, cardamon and black pepper, and strong dark ale set aside for next Christmas. Coming soon will be a couple of hoppy pales with lots of aurora, bramling cross and cascade, then we're into elderflower country which turned out great last year and which I'm really looking forward to. I will post some recipes and pictures of the brewing process and the results.

For anyone starting out and wanting a good quality straight forward kit the Festival range has a lot of fans; their Razor Back IPA is not a million miles away from Punk IPA and their Golden Stag is very nice too.

Cheers and bottoms up - Louis MacNeice

 

[sjamesb3466]

Glad to see this thread.

I'm a BIAB brewer (mainly due to lack of space). Latest brews have been a German wheat flavoured with coriander, cardamon and black pepper, and strong dark ale set aside for next Christmas. Coming soon will be a couple of hoppy pales with lots of aurora, bramling cross and cascade, then we're into elderflower country which turned out great last year and which I'm really looking forward to. I will post some recipes and pictures of the brewing process and the results.

For anyone starting out and wanting a good quality straight forward kit the Festival range has a lot of fans; their Razor Back IPA is not a million miles away from Punk IPA and their Golden Stag is very nice too.

Cheers and bottoms up - Louis MacNeice

Wow those are some interesting sounding brews (especially the Indian inspired wheat beer!). Never tried BIAB technique before as I got too excited when we bought our house 5 years ago and demanded a dedicated brewing shed!

Mash is nearly complete now, 90 minutes at 64 degrees which should yield some lovely highly fermentable sugars for a dry clean tasting ale. For any that are interested the below link is quite a good easy to understand summary of mashing.

http://brulosophy.com/2015/10/12/the-mash-high-vs-low-temperature-exbeeriment-results/

 

[Louis MacNeice]

The BIAB method is really just all grain made easy. I mash and boil in the same pot; a 32lt electrim boiler. I do a sparge by putting the grain bag in a spare ferrmenter and rinse the grains slowly then add that back into the boil; that way I can get a full 5 gallon batch out of my set up. Efficiency is about 75%. Oh and because we're on a water meter I don't chill; the wort goes straight into the fermenter hot and is left overnight to cool then the yeast pitched the next morning...never had any problems doing it this way and it does save time and money.

Before I got the boiler a couple of years ago, I did a lot of tweaking or pimping kits (the Coopers real ale and Australian pale ale kits provide good starting points for messing about); I did and sometimes still do this by using mini-mashes carried out in a couple of large pans on the cooker top. It's an easy way to get used to the mashing and boiling stages of brewing and it produces some really nice beer. When I have time in the week I'll post up some info on ingredients and techniques for this.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Is there such a thing as a home brew festival? I'd love to try some of these beers.

 

[mr sheen]

Kicked off my kit from Wilko's this morning. 6-8 weeks, and I'm hoping it will be a lovely tipple!

 

[mr sheen]

Kicked off my kit from Wilko's this morning. 6-8 weeks, and I'm hoping it will be a lovely tipple!

I will not now be christening it Champions Ale

 

[brakespear]

got some strawberry and blueberry wine brewing at the moment, maybe a couple of weeks left to go before it's done I reckon.